A Kiss Away
by Frisky Wallabee
Summary: AU. Slash. Javid. Blush. David has no friends and escapes into a world of dreams. Then a new boy comes to town and makes him want to stay in reality a little bit more.


**A/n: **I'm just trying to get back into the swing of things. And it's not going this angsty throughout, promise. That's not my style.

**Disclaimer:** don't own them but I'll have 'em back before anyone's the wiser

--

He'd like to say he was the golden boy. That he did stellar in school. That he had loads of friends that turned to him for homework help. That the teachers adored him and his bald-faced honesty. Adored him for his work in the classroom. That his parents trusted him with everything, that he was their responsible son. He'd like to say all of those things. He _could_ say all of those things.

But it didn't mean they were true.

David often wondered why he couldn't do life right. He was smart but he did average at best in school. He was half of a set of twins. Sometimes he was glad that he couldn't get pregnant because at least he had that over his twin sister, Sarah. Still, his parents berated him. For not having friends. For sleeping too much in school. For everything.

He figured that deep down, they really loved him. They were just disappointed in him. He couldn't blame them. In third grade, he had been put in the gifted class for showing exemplary aptitude in school. Now he was barely passing.

It may be because he was always sleeping. David slept through most of his classes, most of his life. He was rarely tired, though. It was just so he could escape to a world of dreams. A world where he wasn't some pinched face pale boy with curly brown hair and a squeaky voice. A world where things were more beautiful.

It wasn't that David hated reality. It was more like reality hated him. Teachers hated him. Girls hated him. Boys hated him. His parents were "disappointed" in him. His brother was the only kind one to him. Les was eight years younger than him and one of the two friends David had. The other was an old stuffed dog named Fuppy. David wished he could have real friends. Friends his own age and that weren't stuffed.

--

Mr. Wiesel pushed back his squeaky, wooden chair back from the ancient desk.

"Class." He eyed them with cool indifference. "I have to make a phone call. Talk quietly amongst yourselves until I return."

He left the room, not once looking at the class. David let his pencil dangle from two, pinched fingers. It fell like a lever. He hated Mr. Wiesel the most out of his teachers. He had a very big 'us-and-them' ideology. David was surprised that he didn't have a giant, read circle drawn around his desk.

He let his pencil drop to his desk. It rolled down it and fell to the floor. David was the only kid in class who didn't have a seat partner at the large, wide desks. He told himself it was only because there were an odd number of people in the class. He let his head fall to the cool, varnished wood but couldn't help but hear snatches of conversation from his classmates.

"I was going to ask him out," a girl was saying. "But then I found out he had been with Sarah Jacobs."

"Who hasn't?" Another girl sniffed, blowing a huge bubble of candy-colored gum. "I heard she's pregnant again."

David sighed in relief but felt bad for it. It wasn't really his sister's fault that she was pregnant again or that she was considered the whore of the school. She was just…easily manipulated by guys. It wasn't as if the father of her other kid had stuck around and neither had the owner of the current bun in the oven. Still, at least they weren't talking about him.

"That whole family's weird," a boy added.

Or maybe not.

"The little one has to be tied to the table because he's _so_ hyperactive."

David frowned. They hadn't had to do that to Les since he was five.

"Anyway," the first girl continued. He vaguely recalled her name. Elizabeth or something. "I was going to ask him out anyway because he was _sooo_ hot but I had this massive zit under my nose. It was like a tomato seed! And he just, like, laughed at me."

He couldn't help it. David burst into laughter. Elizabeth or something and all of the others turned to look at him. She lowered her blue eyes into a glare.

"So you think that's funny?" she demanded.

"Oh…" he stared down at his desk. "No, I don't. I wasn't laughing at that. I was remembering something I saw on _The Daily Show_ last night and…and…"

"Shut up, David!" one of the boys in class, a rather mean bully named Morris, cried.

A crumpled piece of paper _thwacked_ the side of his head.

"God," Elizabeth moaned. "I hate that kid. He's just such a loser."

"Same," the gum-chewing girl said.

David screwed his face up. "I'm right here. I can hear everything you are saying."

The gum girl blew a huge bubble and it popped, spreading the brightly colored gum across her chin. Elizabeth smirked.

"Lemme see some of that gum," she said, glancing back at David.

A few moments later, Mr. Wiesel waddled his way back into class. David was already halfway to another daydream, when he heard that Elizabeth girl's shrill voice perforate his ear drums.

"Mr. Wiesel!" she squeaked. "David spit gum in my hair!"

His cool indifference turned into an icy glare in his direction. David sat up, startled.

"I didn't do it!" he said, knowing that the excuse was pretty lame. "She's…she's lying!"

Mr. Wiesel actually made his way down the aisle, making sure he wasn't touching any of the students as if they all carried some disease. He leveled his fat head to David and glared at him with his rheumy, fish-like eyes.

"Then how, Mr. Jacobs, did gum end up in poor Elizabeth's hair?"

He glanced away, down at his lap. "She…put it there."

Wiesel tossed back his head in laughter.

"Why would she put gum in her own hair?"

Elizabeth smirked. "Yeah, David. Why would I do that?"

The rest of the class chortled. David didn't know why they hated him, but they did. It didn't matter, he thought. He could just go home and escape into his realm of dreams. Class was over soon anyway. He'd be home.

"For punishment, Mr. Jacobs," Wiesel said in a voice David presumed was supposed to sound authoritative. "You will stay after school and scrape all of the gum from under the desks."

Inwardly, he shuddered. There had to be gum there from the seventies, still. Outwardly, he sighed. So much for going home.

--

David didn't finish until seven o'clock that night. He trudged home, pulling a strand of dried gum from the sleeve of his sweater.

"Stupid gum," he muttered. "Stupid Wiesel. Stupid Elizabeth. Stupid detention."

He rounded the corner to his house and his thoughts began to veer towards violent.

"I wish I _had_ spit it in her hair," he spat. "Right onto her scalp so she'd have to shave her pretty 'chestnut waves' off!"

He grabbed the railing of the steps leading up to his house and glanced over to the one next door. The houses in David's neighborhood weren't very far apart. They also all looked the same. They were tract houses, post-war houses that were all set up the same and looked the same. It led to a Xeroxed feeling of monotony every time he came home. Especially when he looked at the perennially empty one next door.

SOLDwas written in bold lettering across the realtor's sign.

"Huh," he said. "Someone finally bought that house."

David pushed open the door to see his family's after dinner activities already under way. Les was playing with the beer bottle fort he had made for his pet turtles in the middle of the living room. His father sat on their denim couch, staring at _The Wheel of Fortune_ with the colors reflected in his eyes. Sarah's twin two-year-olds, Adam and Eve (or 'Accident' and 'Mistake' as David secretly called them) were running around the house while Sarah herself sat in the easy chair, complaining about how she had to only wear sweatpants again.

His mother turned around from loading the dishwasher and glared at him.

"David, where have you been?" She demanded, placing her hands on her hips.

"Detention."

She let out a puff of air, exasperated.

"Again?"

She grabbed his arm and sat him down in a chair and began to lecture him about disobedience and how he shouldn't keep getting detention and where a bright boy like him went wrong. David would have been lying if he said he was listening.

"Could we pause the yelling for a second while I get something to eat?" he asked. "I'm starving."

"Your dinner's cold."

As if that was an answer. His mother plopped a plate full of cold tuna casserole with macaroni and cheese in front of him. David hated tuna but he was too hungry to care. After dumping his plate in the sink, he started towards his bedroom.

"I'm going to bed. Good night."

He was already in his room and closing his door before Sarah called to him, "It's only 7:30!"

--

Instead of actually sleeping, David shrugged into his pajamas and slumped on the floor. He didn't know why the world seemed to hate him. He didn't hate the world.

He heard his parents speaking in the kitchen.

"Esther, don't be so hard on him."

"I wouldn't be if he didn't act like such a child. He's eighteen, Mayer, and he still acts like a little kid. This getting detention business. It's ridiculous."

"Perhaps you're right…"

David sighed and plopped onto his bed. He sometimes cried himself to sleep but eventually sleep came and he could escape these worlds with their angry mothers and detention.

--

David remembered that when he was little, he'd hold Fuppy and stare out at the kids having fun on the playground. He'd watch the other kids play and look down at Fuppy as if he were a person.

"Look at the kids," he'd say. "They're all trying so hard to fit in. They're all acting grown up and aren't having fun at all. Lizzy says those kids are cool and she'd rather play with them than me. But if growing up is that boring, I want to be a kid forever!"

Now, David stared at Fuppy. His stuffing was mostly gone, the majority of it concentrated in his rump and head and arms. His original nose had been replaced by a teddy bear nose his mother had picked up at a craft store. One, plastic eye was scratched and his brown fur was matted and peeling, some of it revealing the white netting underneath.

"Look at those other kids," he said. "They all fit in. They have friends. I'm too different, so I don't have any friends. I can't seem to grow up and be responsible like I know I can be. I'm so tired of being alone, Fuppy."

"David!" someone was screaming. "Wake up! Wake up! You're late!"

He didn't want to wake up. He wanted to stay dreaming.

But he did wake up, as everyone had to. He got up and dressed for school in a pair of faded, ripped jeans he pulled off the floor of his closet and a blue Polo shirt. He tiredly laced his shoes up. He tiredly grabbed his backpack full of the homework he had tiredly neglected to do. He tiredly skipped breakfast and he tiredly trudged out the door to school.

--

David was still tiredly trudging down the hallway when a pudgy, greasy hand clamped on his shoulder.

"Mr. Jacobs." Mr. Wiesel's breath reeked of leeks and onions. "What are those gaping things in the middle of your pants?"

David glanced down as if realizing what he was wearing for the first time.

"…holes, sir?"

"Wearing hole-covered pants with no patches is against the school's Code of Conduct, Mr. Jacobs."

He was already scribbling out a detention slip. David sighed and leaned against some lockers. He couldn't win, could he?

Three hours later, David found himself trudging home. He ate another cold dinner and went to bed at 7:30 again. When he was little, he thought that if he squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated hard enough, he'd open them and look into the mirror to find a new boy with a new life. A good-looking boy who was good at sports and had heaps of friends.

But every time he did so, he just found himself staring back at plain old, David Jacobs.

That night, he dreamed he was a gorgeous matinee idol. He locked Mr. Wiesel down in the dungeons of Hollywood (which clearly existed) and he danced around laughing with his movie star friends.

That morning, he dressed in pants that had no holes and a shirt with no stains. On a whim, he even wore a denim jacket over his shirt as the autumn months were making everything colder. He was feeling almost happy as he left his house. He vowed not to get in trouble that day. As he walked away from his house, he noticed movers dragging boxes into the house next door. He even gave them a wave and they waved back.

--

"I can't believe it," he whispered to himself. "The day's almost over and I'm not in trouble…but I hafta pee."

He raised his hand. Mr. Wiesel turned almost _Exorcist_-style away from the board.

"Yes?"

"Can I use the bathroom?"

"You may."

David rushed from the class and into the bathroom…just as he heard a _flick_. He turned and saw Elizabeth leaning against the bay of lockers, smoking a cigarette. Her long, wavy brown hair was a few inches shorter, obvious from her trick with the gum.

"Um…nice haircut, Liz—Elizabeth."

She glared at him.

"If you tell anyone I'm smoking, I'll make your life a living Hell."

_You already do._ _You're in a hallway, dumbass. Gee whiz, sure will, your highness_.

David settled on the neutral. "Okay."

As David relieved himself, he entertained the notion of turning Elizabeth in. She deserved it, undoubtedly. He could go see Mr. Wiesel after school and grass on her.

"That's what I'll do," he said as he washed his hands, smiling victoriously. "That's what I'll do."

--

He waited anxiously for the last bell so he could enact his plan. The second it rang, he nearly let out a menacing laugh.

With a spring in his step, he approached Mr. Wiesel. The portly teacher doubled as overseer for their grade, almost an administrator.

"Mr. Wiesel?" he poked his head in the door.

"Ah, David," he sounded almost happy to see him.

David put his backpack on the ground and walked over to the empty chair on the other side of the desk in his little makeshift office.

"So Elizabeth tells me you've been smoking."

David nearly fell out of the chair before he got a chance to sit in it.

"What?" he demanded. "It was me! It was her! Elizabeth was smoking!"

"Mr. Jacobs, you honestly want me to believe that straight-A Elizabeth was smoking rather than you, a known troublemaker?"

"Um…yes?"

He smirked and David wanted to slap that gesture off his fat face.

"Wrong answer, Mr. Jacobs. Your punishment will be…" he leaned his girth back in the chair as if figuring it out. "Ah! Your punishment will be cleaning the boys' bathroom every day after school until winter break."

--

David sighed, hating this punishment already. Couldn't the school hire janitors for this kind of shit? He was on his hands and knees, scrubbing the oatmeal-colored linoleum. The rubber gloves were making his hands sweat profusely, he almost couldn't grasp the toilet cleaner when he had been scrubbing out the latrines. All but one, which had thankfully been occupied.

David nearly blanched when he found a used condom on the floor.

"Ew!" he squeaked, tossing it aside.

He realized then that he'd still have to pick it up and went over to where it was. He found it resting just in front of a pair of worn combat boots.

David glanced up at their owner to apologize for nearly hitting them with a condom. The boy staring down at him took his breath away. He had high cheekbones and a mop of sandy blonde hair that looked almost brown under the fluorescent lights. His skin was a creamy color and seemed to be poured over his bones. He wore leather and a torn concert t-shirt. But what struck David the most was that he was smiling at him.

"Hey," he said.


End file.
